david sabatini is one of the brightest scientists in america. years after a fake rape accusation shattered his life and career, he sued his accuser and won. he discussed the details of this shocking story with @neerajadeshp for pirate wires:

As I exited my video call with @DMSabatini, whom I interviewed for @PirateWires via @IWF, all I could think was: here is a scientist who has made some of the biggest breakthroughs of our age—a man who is exceptional, definitionally abnormal in the best sense of the word; here he is, begging for “normal.” The people who put him in such a position—including Kristin Knouse, his ex who was found by a jury to have defamed him by falsely calling him a “rapist”—remain employed by the Whitehead Institute. Full piece in the replies.

Former MIT scientist David Sabatini just won $6 million in a landmark case against false allegations of r*pe and sexual assault, which destroyed his career. Once on track to win the Nobel Prize, Sabatini’s ex-girlfriend accused him of r*pe in 2020 and began calling him the ‘Weinstein of science.’ He was later accused of perpetuating a “bro culture” in his lab. As a result, he was stripped of all his funding, lost his job, and went bankrupt. We interviewed Sabatini (@DMSabatini) about the verdict, which he says made him “proud to be an American.” @neerajadeshp reports 👇

Today, @anduriltech and @qualcomm announced a new laptop that will eventually be 100% made in America, a “first step” toward creating a market for U.S.-manufactured components and total technological self-sufficiency. Building computers in America should be a matter of “national pride,” says @PalmerLuckey. @JonasYDu reports 👇

America invented the computer. Then it offshored the ability to build one. @PalmerLuckey thinks it's a matter of 'national pride' to fix that, with @anduriltech announcing a line of US-made computers with @Qualcomm today. The goal: every material, component, and process being domestic — a broader vision that we can and should develop total self-sufficiency for important technology. I wrote about why that matters in @PirateWires:

anyway, I wrote about the authoritarian takeover of the democratic party back in august, and predicted it would all become more obvious this fall, in advance of our next election. the democrats will not moderate because they can't. this is the future.

there are plenty of people who are earnestly anxious about AI. bernie sanders is not one of those people, and his legislative attempts have nothing to do with our safety. because bernie sanders' goal has not changed in half a century: literally just whatever hurts america.

the best piece on peter's antichrist lecture series by a wide margin. if you're interested in what he actually said and thinks, rather than what a journalist who hates him and received some third hand notes believes he might have said, check out the latest from pirate wires:

For months, everyone has been talking about Peter Thiel’s secretive Antichrist lectures in Nashville. @gb_rango attended all four off-the-record lectures, held inside the historic Grand Lodge of Tennessee Free and Accepted Masons. Now, with Thiel’s blessing: a comprehensive, firsthand reconstruction of his sprawling theory of the end times, from AI doomers and one-world government to the fate of America.

Democrats are openly talking about jailing Elon Musk as soon as they retake power. @micsolana on how American politics became a blood feud — on both sides — that's only getting worse.

SF’s dating pool was once, as an Egyptian founder put it to us, “drier than the desert in my homeland.” Now, gorgeous women are flocking to the city. Why? As AI gets cheaper to build, companies flush with venture cash are hiring beautiful women to charm investors and clients. Enjoy it while it lasts, gentlemen. As @nicolewizman1 writes: paying hotties 6 figures to get drunk with your business prospects feels like a pretty good sign we’re in a bubble. 👇

We followed a founder trying to build the most reasonable data center project in America: a dozen shipping container-sized boxes on a remote plot of sand in rural Colorado. No water. No noise. The local electric co-op says it'll lower power bills. You might expect the approval process to be straightforward. It wasn’t. As @JonasYDu reports: In September, over 60 residents packed a county office in rural Colorado (pop. 7,000), to question David Meyer (@thedmeyer), 29, whose startup Strata (@DeployStrata) wants to build modular data centers in neighboring Alamosa County 🧵

A handful of Wikipedia editors have rewritten the story of Covid’s origins to depict ‘lab leak’ as a racist conspiracy — despite the FBI, CIA, and leading scientists all stating they believe the virus likely came from a lab. Here’s how they buried the truth @AshleyRindsberg👇

It’s easy to find sensationalized, low-brow, bad-faith writing about “rationalists” in the AI world. But is there perhaps a more sincere way of scrutinizing the worldview of the people at the heart of this movement: one that is currently shaping public discourse, policy proposals, and alignment research? In this earnest philosophical inquiry, @jane_gatsby explores: why are so many rationalists convinced AI will kill everyone while also participating in practices like “consensual non-consent” orgies? What could possibly explain the overlap? She offers three theories, culminating in: relational wounds. For rationalists, some of whom grew up with highly religious and/or disturbed parents, discomfort in the face of uncertainty fuels a fixation on control. This manifests in everything from elaborate, unconventional, kinky bedroom practices to AI alignment. Repressed desires and fears find increasingly extreme outlets. As Jane puts it: “what is artificial intelligence if not an Other of potentially cosmic significance who is impossible to predict or constrain?” These are just theories. But rationalists’ influence on AI discourse is undeniable, and their worldview, as Jane argues, is “metaphysically nihilistic.” There are other, more productive ways to approach AI development besides treating the models as some evil, adversarial force. Besides: “You cannot successfully align something when your own perspective is crooked.” Full piece threaded 👇

Celebrities like Angelina Jolie are selling their Los Angeles homes for millions below asking price. Others like Aaron Paul are even choosing to live in faraway countries rather than spend another minute in the city. It’s not just a Hollywood trend, either: LA County as a whole lost roughly 54,000 residents last year, the most of any county in the US. Why? Government regulations and ineffective socialist property taxes, of course. LA’s “mansion tax,” which puts a 4% tax on property sales above $5 million to fund “affordable housing,” has inadvertently suppressed the sale of 9,100 homes, cost the equivalent of 16,650 construction jobs, and a class of small-time developers are getting crushed. Meanwhile, the city has spent only about 10% of its collections from the tax, and on deeply questionable projects: one is an $800,000 per unit development that still hasn’t broken ground after 4 years. In addition, condo construction, historically a stepping stone to homeownership for middle-class families, has collapsed by roughly 90% thanks to other burdensome regulations. All of this, of course, comes as the Palisades remains largely unreconstructed. @nicolewizman1 breaks down how LA destroyed its housing market, triggering a massive exodus 👇

Former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon became a media superstar after going public with his AI fears. He insisted that he wasn’t working with any third party organizations. Familiar sources told us a different story: DEY., a PR firm representing many of the most prominent AI safetyists, was booking his interviews. One source, who had direct knowledge, even said DEY. preemptively booked Nate Soares, a prominent AI safety figure, for interviews that directly overlapped with Jacob going public. Jacob working with DEY. is notable for two reasons: first, as mentioned, he previously said he wasn’t working with third parties. Second, we are in the middle of a national conversation about the future of AI that is actively determining how we regulate the most powerful technology in the world, largely thanks to the panic stirred up by Jacob — and it’s in the public’s interest to know who, exactly, is behind it. Scoop from @huntryerson 👇